People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is

A funny thing has happened on the way to the election. Everybody wants to discuss Julia Gillard with me. From shop keepers to café owners to members of the P&F to previously unacquainted parents in the schoolyard. There is only one reason that I can see for this. Julia and I, we have the Red Hair.

I’m beginning to feel like my sister Multiple Mum does when people point out that she has four children. Her response, ‘er yes, I know’ (whilst inwardly seething the much-less-polite answer). This conversation is usually followed up for her by a comment such as ‘haven’t you worked out how it happens yet, love’ or something similarly hilarious.

My conversations tend to start with:

Random person: “So what do you think of Julia Gillard?”

Me: “She seems very smart.”

RP: “But you must be excited…”

Me: “Um, sure, it’s good to see a woman doing so well.” (Or words to that effect.)

RP: “No, not that – the red hair! Soon you’ll be taking over the world.”

Me: “Can I have a latte please?”

To be perfectly frank, I’m a bit over the red hair thing. Yes, Julia and I are both (now ‘helped along’) red heads. Beyond that, we don’t know each other (I know, you're shocked). We have certain things in common, I have no doubt: a tendency to freckle, suppressed memories of certain hideous moments at school when being a redhead was genetic freakdom at its highest level, and I suspect she has read Anne of Green Gables* because one does when one is a redhaired girl of a certain age.

But the hair does not define me and, for me, it does not define her. I suspect it has had a part in shaping her character, because our physicality does. Would I be so much of a smart-mouth if I did not have red hair? I suspect not. I spent a lot of time defending my lily-white legs in a town full of bouncing blonde beach babes. Perhaps it is the same for her.

But seriously folks, it’s time to get past the hair and listen to what she’s saying. If she had Dolly Parton boobs and that was all people talked about, the politically correct among us would be jumping up and down and crying sexist. Well, I’m crying ‘hairist’. Are all the brown-haired men in the world excited about the possibility of Prime Minister Abbott? (There are several responses to that question, feel free to leave yours in the comments.)

Give the woman a break and please give the ‘ranga’ term a rest. My other sister Maxabella (another redhead – maybe we are actually taking over the world) is happy to reclaim that word (along with Fanta Pants and other classics) and thus take the ugly out of it. Me, not so much.

And now I’m off to brush up on my Anne of Green Gables quotes. If Ms Gillard is returned to the Lodge in a week or so, I suspect I’m going to be needing them.

Hmmm. Here's a good one for Julia: "Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"

But in the end, I must return to one of my old favourites: "You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair. People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is."

I can't see it catching on as a campaign slogan though.

*Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery

A boy named Blue (or RPatz)

Red-haired men. They come up in conversation much more than they used to, thanks to the teen (and grown-up) phenomenon that is RPatz. I don't get the Edward love. I guess that puts me on Team Whatever-The-Werewolf's-Name-Is. I suspect it's a redhead/redhead thing. Put two together and people automatically think you're related, so I tended to steer clear. Only ever considered it this one time...but that ended up in a suitcase.

I had a conversation - via tweet - about my position on red-haired men. It's way too complicated to reduce to 140 characters, so I've decided instead to reproduce an article I wrote on the subject. It first appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald's Spectrum section a few years ago, long before RPatz was a twinkle in a film-maker's eyes. Since then, and thanks to the Undead One, women's attitudes to redheads has changed a bit. Then, Marian Keyes's evil Lorcan Larkin was a man women fell for despite the fact that he was a redhead (The Last Chance Saloon). Now half the planet's falling over itself for a pale, chiselled, ginger-haired Vampire. Progress.

"Extinct within 100 years. High sensitivity to heat- and cold-related pain. Down to two per cent of the population.

With stats like that, if redheads were an animal species, there’d be a conservation group set up, a fund-raising day set aside in which everyone had to wear red wigs, and some kind of cute mascot (possibly a Weasley?) designed to pull in the crowds. As it is, Simon Cheetham, founder of www.redandproud.com, recently told The Guardian newspaper that discrimination against redheads in the UK is getting worse.

“In this politically correct world you can’t say anything about people’s religion or sexuality, but it’s still okay here in Britain to portray redheads in a negative manner,” he said.

And that’s in a part of the world where they’ve got the numbers. After all, some 13 per cent of the world’s redheads live in Scotland, and 40 per cent of the population carries the gene.

I’d like to say I’ve never noticed this discrimination, but the fact is that I’ve even participated in it.

First, the disclaimer, I am a redhead, with a red-haired sister, a red-haired cousin, a red-haired nephew, a red-haired niece, a red-haired uncle – in fact, a whole family tree of Gingas, Carrot Tops, Jaffas and Bloodnuts. All of which affected me only in small ways: an embarrassing lack of suntan in 1980s Australia, a tendency to blush easily, and a fondness for Anne of Green Gables quotes (“People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is.")

I thought I was red and proud. And in 2004, when Amanda Third, a Monash researcher (with red hair), found that redhead women had begun to surpass blondes in the sexiness stakes, well, my crimson pride knew no bounds.

Then I got pregnant.

Suddenly, between researching names (Maximus? Hermes? Ridge (not really)) and buying tiny singlets, I found myself obsessively studying genetics. Why? The prospect of The Red-Haired Son.

My husband and I discussed the possibility of a Tinge of Ginge on our unborn child. He waxed lyrical about the idea of a red-haired girl. When I raised the spectre of a boy named Blue, his response was less enthusiastic: “I’m sure I’ll learn to love him anyway.”

Put red hair on a boy and, somehow, the perception is that he’ll be picked last for sports (probably because mum’s still slathering him in sunscreen), geeky (Richie Cunningham anyone?) and have no luck with the ladies (evidence: the declining redhead population). Of course, rugby international Nick Farr-Jones, director/writer/actor/rich guy Ron Howard and notorious airline passenger Ralph Fiennes might beg to differ.

My initial research into our chances of producing a Rusty was encouragingly negative. According to Jonathan Rees, professor of dermatology at Edinburgh University who, with his colleagues, discovered the gene (MC1R, responsible for melanin production) that creates redheads, if a person has one of several variations of the gene, and if the variation is inherited from both parents, then they are likely to be red haired. So two parents with mutant gene equals red hair.

With my husband’s Dutch ancestry spectacularly redhead-free, things were looking good. I should have stopped there.

Professor Rees goes on to say that if you inherit the variation from just one parent, you have an increased chance of being red haired.

One parent with mutant gene equals very good chance of red hair.

Back to square one.

Taking a leaf from Sherlock Holmes’s Red Headed League (“for the propagation and spread of red-heads as well as for their maintenance”), I became a one-woman Red Haired Male Appreciation Society, tracking down the successful, the smart and the sexy of the red-haired fraternity. From Donald Trump and Kerry Packer, to Mark Twain, William Shakespeare and Jean-Paul Sartre, to David Wenham, that guy from Band of Brothers… even Prince Harry turned out better than we could have ever hoped. Archie Andrews was the red Romeo of Riverdale, Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States, Henry VIII was the original serial monogamiser.

True, redheads don’t often turn up as the heroes of romance novels – though I’m assured by my friends at the Romance Writers of Australia Association that there’s no rule about this – but I did discover a personals website (planetredhead.com) for redheads and those who love them.

If my boy turned out to be a rude red, I was ready. In fact, I was almost disappointed when he was not. Almost.

Second time around, I was more relaxed. So much so that when Mr3 showed signs of, um, strawberry in his baby blonde locks, I was able to be philosophical. Red-haired men, I’ve decided, are like pink diamonds: increasingly rare and a fine investment."

Update: Sister B (Red, with Red son) has weighed into this debate over on her blog. Read it. She gets to the short and curlies of the subject.